An Overview of the New Navigation Features of BusinessObjects Design Studio 1.4

by Ned Falk, Senior Education Consultant, SAP

December 22, 2014

Learn the steps needed to leverage the new User Interactivity features for crosstabs and the navigation options for the filter panel for BusinessObjects Design Studio 1.4. These features allow user-specific analysis on the fly without the need to code anything.

Learning Objectives

By reading this article, you will learn how to:

Configure and use the User Interactivity section features of Design Studio 1.4

Configure and use the new drag-and-drop navigation features of the Design Studio 1.4 filter panels

Key Concept

The User Interactivity features for crosstabs as well as the drag-and-drop navigation feature within the filter panel are new BusinessObjects Design Studio 1.4 options. Applying these new tools in your Design Studio Application allows more flexibility for analysis by end users, and reduces development time for applications with even more analysis options, than exist today.

BusinessObjects Design Studio is SAP’s replacement for dashboards (formerly known as Xcelsius) and BEx Web Application Designer (WAD). It is a useful tool, but up until the new 1.4 release, this very young tool had a feature void, especially for those users experienced with the BEx WAD. This missing feature was the ability for the end users to change the presented Design Studio application to facilitate their user-specific analysis needs. Although Design Studio 1.4’s drag-and-drop functionality is somewhat different from the functionality of BExWAD, it is very functional and should accelerate the adoption of Design Studio even more. I explain the new functionalities offered and how best to use them.

NoteThis article targets users already familiar with Design Studio. You can experiment with the tool or attend SAP training BOD310 to get the most out of this article.

The User Interactivity Section on Crosstabs

With the release of Design Studio 1.4 the crosstab element has been improved to allow better user navigation (for example, the ability to add free characteristics [attributes] to the rows or columns of cross tabs). In addition, users can interactively sort, choose, and navigate an SAP BW hierarchy or change column widths. These new features are useful for the more advanced Design Studio application users. I explain how you can achieve each of these using example scenarios.

NoteFor users not familiar with SAP BW terminology, a “free characteristic”
means that it’s available in the data source but is not shown currently
in the dashboard (in other words, initially hidden but available on
demand).

User Interactivity: Customizing the Context Menu Options

As experienced users of Design Studio know, the Properties tab of each component is the key to its behavior inside that dashboard. The crosstab is no exception. In the crosstab’s Properties pane, most of the groupings (General, Data Binding, and so forth) have been around for a while. The new kid on the block is the User Interactivity section.

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Ned Falk

Ned Falk is a senior education consultant at SAP. In prior positions, he implemented many ERP solutions, including SAP R/3. While at SAP, he initially focused on logistics. Now he focuses on SAP HANA, SAP BW (formerly SAP NetWeaver BW), SAP CRM, and the integration of SAP BW and SAP BusinessObjects tools. You can meet him in person when he teaches SAP HANA, SAP BW, or SAP CRM classes from the Atlanta SAP office, or in a virtual training class over the web. If you need an SAP education plan for SAP HANA, SAP BW, BusinessObjects, or SAP CRM, you may contact Ned via email.